HR Falls Short At Recognising Staff

This is another pertinent and interesting article I came across. 

While HR leaders expect employee engagement to be a key challenge, they lack effective approaches to track engagement levels and the returns of staff recognition initiatives.

According to the Employee Recognition Tracker Survey 2011, nearly all 745 HR leaders (99%) polled agree that employee engagement will be a vital challenge in the next three to five years.

Yet, an alarming 71% of these HR leaders only track engagement levels through exit interviews, suggesting that engagement issues only surface when employees leave the firm. Some 65% linked engagement levels to staff retention rates.

Similarly, only 37% align employee recognition programmes to their corporate values, while 43% of HR practitioners reward staff based on performance linked to the firm's financial targets. Such low percentages are indicative of companies failing to implement strategic recognition schemes that can drive performance and manage the firm's culture. 

More than two thirds (69%) of HR leaders are convinced that their employees are dissatisfied with the recognition they receive at work, with 54% thinking that their managers and supervisors are ineffective in rewarding and appreciating employees. 

Perhaps more appalling would be that a third of CEOs do not invest any time at all on recognition schemes. One key reason would be that almost half of HR respondents (49%) track their schemes by unit or department, which makes it tedious for senior management to get a comprehensive company-wide overview of recognition efforts. 

Evaluating the success of their recognition schemes also proved to be elusive and difficult, with 87% of HR respondents failing to track the returns of investments (ROI) on their programmes.

HR leaders listed inconsistent metrics and the poor alignment of recognition schemes with other talent or performance management structures as top challenges behind measuring ROI (32%). 

Over one-fifth of leaders (22%) also said their current recognition programme is "not designed to deliver improvement in metrics" that the executive leadership finds valuable.

Eric Mosely, CEO of Globoforce, said, "Measuring recognition adds a level of accountability for all employees, and is ultimately how behaviours change and culture is managed." 

He added, "It's also how today's HR leaders can gain the much-needed support and investment from senior management for strategic engagement and recognition programmes."

The survey was conducted by employee recognition solutions provider Globoforce and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) earlier in May this year.